Your balance can show $180 and let you withdraw $30. That is not an error. Casinos hold two separate pots, and only one of them is money you own.
Real balance is your deposits and anything already converted. It is withdrawable. Bonus balance is credited funds plus whatever they have won, and it is locked until the wagering requirement is cleared.
What each pot contains
| Real balance | Bonus balance | |
|---|---|---|
| Made of | Deposits, converted winnings | Credited bonus, winnings from it |
| Withdrawable | Yes | No, until cleared |
| Maximum bet applies | No | Yes, usually around $5 |
| Game exclusions apply | No | Yes |
| Expires | No | Yes, typically 7 to 30 days |
The restrictions in the right column are the whole reason the split exists. A casino cannot let bonus funds behave like cash, or the bonus would simply be a cash gift.
Which pot pays for a spin
This is the detail that decides whether an offer is worth taking, and almost nobody checks it.
Cash first, the common default. Your deposit is spent before the bonus is touched. If you lose the deposit, you have lost only what you brought, and the bonus is still there untouched. Walking away at that point costs nothing.
Bonus first. The credited funds are spent before your deposit. It sounds worse and it is sometimes better: the wagering requirement starts falling immediately rather than after your own money is gone.
The terms name the order in a single line. When they do not, the account history shows it after two or three spins.
Why the total drops when the bonus clears
Clearing the requirement moves the bonus balance into the real balance. That transfer is where the payout cap bites.
A $20 bonus with a 5x conversion cap allows $100 to convert. Finish the requirement holding $260 in the bonus pot and $160 of it disappears at the moment of conversion.
| Held in bonus balance | 5x cap on a $20 bonus | Converted to cash |
|---|---|---|
| $60 | $100 | $60 |
| $100 | $100 | $100 |
| $260 | $100 | $100 |
The cap is not a penalty for winning big. It is the casino's cost control, and it is why the cap matters as much as the multiplier when comparing offers. That comparison is laid out in what 40x wagering means for a payout.
The withdrawal that cancels the bonus
Requesting a payout while a bonus is active usually forfeits it. The cash goes out, the bonus and everything won from it is removed.
That can still be the right move. If you are holding $200 of cash and a barely-touched requirement, taking the cash beats grinding $3,000 of turnover to keep a $50 bonus. The full arithmetic is in withdrawing before the wagering is cleared.
The version with no split at all
A wager-free bonus pays into the real balance directly. There is no second pot, no conversion event, no cap to trim a win at the last step. The trade is size: these offers are small, because everything credited is immediately withdrawable.
Between the two sits a third structure worth knowing. What a non-sticky bonus does differently is leave the bonus pot untouched while your own cash is in play.